Bay 12 Games Forum

It comes and goes.

Some lost Star Trek episodes:
"The Squire of the City on the Sky"
"The Ultimate Little War"
"I, Mudd's Women"
"A Piece of Part I"
"Court Mark of the Doomsday Machine"
"A Taste of Part I"
"The Part II"
"The Children Shall Leave" --usually what I say about child actors
"The Squire of Terror, Mirror, Mirror"
"The Ultimate Little Way to Tomorrow Is Hollow and of Zetar"
"By Annihilato's Brain"
"And of Gods Deste Little Way of Armager of Gods Devil in the Savage of Arenagerie, Part Machine"
"Plato's Brain"
"Spock's Child"
"Tomorrow Is Hollow and I Have Touched the War"
"That Be Your Last Battle Way to Eden"
"Breadly Hunt"
"We'll Always Have Touched the Mind's Enterpiece of Terrors"
"Code of Tribbles"
"Spock's Break Performance"
"Realm of Pals"
"Captain's Arsenal Zone"
"Wink of Honor"
"Face Have"
"All Goth Now"
"Loud Man"

And more of (the late ) Christopher Lee's admirable filmography:
Saruman Office
Dr. Cliff (AKA Castle of the Adventure Chocolate Factor)
Not Dracula (as Dracula)
The Clone Wars Episode II: Attack of Murder Saxton (Alternative title: Horror Hotel)
Dracula has Risen from Nagasaki
Bear (as Grigori Rasputin Wonka)
Serial (as Lord Progress)
Too Hot to be his favourite
Star Wars: The Factory of the Grave Tales (as Walter)
Watchmaker Massacre
Boogie Woogie Woogie Woogie (as Alquazar)
Penny and Virgin of the Rings: The New Batch
The Return of Nuremberg
The Hobbit: The Story (certainly not the Peter Jackson version)
Funny Man Who Could Cheat Death and the Devil-Ship Pirates (as Count Dracula)
Beat Girl from Witch Mountain
Revenge of Blood Rivers II: Revenge of Murder Saxton
Meatcleaver Man (as Lord of the World)
Starship of the Mummy
Sherlock Holmes and Night of the Chocolate Face of the Director of the Hands of Dracula (Alternative title: Hercules in the Baskerville)

    Ellum Routband was one of the first humans in the world. She married Tista Ownedrained in the year 1 and settled into a quiet life as a bowyer in Reigngems. She and her family moved to the new town of Boarsneaked upon its founding in the year 4; in the same year Ellum convinced the town council to appoint her to Lady of the village. After many years of rule, and following the birth of her last child in 13, she began to fear her inevitable death. She prayed to Gogol the Crypt of Urns, hoping to master the will of fate; Gogol acquiesced, granting her the slab "Fataldies" in the year 16. For two years she concealed this fact from her family and servants, retreating to the deep recesses of her castle to practice her magic; soon, though, she realized she needed much more privacy... much more.
    Ellum travelled to the site of the Ignited Battle, an elf-human conflict from five years earlier, and awoke the dead who lay there, buried or forgotten. With these new slaves she travelled to the furthest reaches of the known world, into the great savage desert at the foot of the evil mountains, and built a great tower: Batowzilta, "Tradeamazed." Here she remained, furthering her dark knowledge, never once returning or even looking back on the life she left behind.
    Ellum's husband Tista was despondent at her sudden, unexplained departure. He lived on for another three years in a melancholic state, finally dying when the terrible dragon Idrath, the most devastating megabeast in all history, attacked and destroyed Boarsneaked.

    Meanwhile, Inod Pagebreached, one of the very first dwarves, was following her own path to the dark arts. Her husband, Cog Lureinked, had been named the baron of Counselledlashes in the year 2; he and Inod had five children, the eldest a daughter named Urist Lettershoved. In the year 7 Inod was appointed the baroness of Scrapefountain. This was hard on her family, since she had to spend most of her time in her barony, and when Cog was raised to count in the year 8 his duties became more demanding; but she and Cog had a sixth child in the year 12 despite this difficulty. Then in the year 16, Inod was attacked in her castle at Scrapefountain by the midnight crone One Shadenight. Though she suffered no injuries she was shaken by the event, and began to despair over her own mortality.
    Around the year 20, Ellum Routband, until then alone in her tower (save for her zombie slaves) and not particularly disposed to treat with mortals ever again, recieved a letter sent by raven from the dwarflands. It was from Inod, who had learned of Ellum's secret and desired to become her apprentice. Ellum considered: there was little the dwarf baroness could give her that she wanted - money was as useless to her as companionship - but perhaps another mind skilled in necromancy might aid her further research into those arts. She had conquered natural death; could a death by violence be similarly nullified, or even, could the weak body be forever cast off and the necromancer live on as pure, indestructible spirit? Ellum had not yet found any answers to these questions, and perhaps a colleague was what she needed.
    In short order, therefore, Inod became Ellum's apprentice, leaving behind home and family as her master had done. For nine years she and Ellum worked to advance their craft with no results. Then, in the year 29, Inod's husband Cog finally learned of her whearabouts, and journeyed to Batowzilta to find her. Ellum was against his being allowed within - he might make Inod regret her decision to leave, losing her a promising confederate - but Inod claimed that she could persuade Cog to join them. And so she did: Cog became her apprentice, but soon outshined her, and indeed Ellum herself, in his proficiency at the dark arts.

    Cog took an apprentice in the year 36, an old dwarf named Rovod Fordedpaddles. He had been the mayor of Sprinklebolted since the year 2, and had been attacked by the dread dragon Idrath in the year 7. By this time Ellum had become reclusive again, keeping to her apartments in the upper floors of Batowzilta, occasionally producing a necromantic tract or work of history; Cog and Inod worked together in the lower floors with apprentice Rovod. When he had mastered the art and began his own research, who should appear at the tower gates but Urist Lettershoved, Cog anf Inod's eldest daughter. She had been mayor of Defensegolds since the year 19, a wonder indeed since she was only sixteen at the time. The same pioneering spirit that led her to mayorhood also led her to find out what had become of her parents who had disappeared years ago, leaving their families, lands, and titles without a word. When she learned where they were, and what they were, and what they knew, suddenly life as the mayor of a small hillocks seemed too provincial for a dwarf of her talents. She was, of course, welcomed into the fold by her father and mother, and put under Rovod's tutelage.

    Three more apprentices followed her into the dark halls of Batowzilta: Bembul Greensteels, another countess of Counselledlashes; Apsong Spiritdeeps, a human originally from the town of Kissisland who had become lady of Hawkcontrolled in 104; and Stukos Helmedlulled, former baroness of Defensegolds who had survived a minotaur attack in 66. The small coven of Batowzilta is to this day guided by the family, Inod, Cog, and Urist; Ellum is still viewed with much respect by all, as the primordial necromancer, but she wields little influence in the tower, mainly because she doesn't care to. She is occupied with more important matters.

So this is unrelated, but I was thinking about the pragmatics of Dwarvish the other day. I feel (and maybe it's the general consensus) that Dwarves would appreciate directness in speech, rather than indirectness. In other words, a straight command like "Open the window", while it sounds rude or brusque in English, would to a Dwarf indicate respect: the speaker respects their audience enough to be direct with them and tell them straight out what they want, how they feel, etc. In contrast, the more indirect "Could you open the window?" would sound evasive, possibly manipulative, and would indicate that the speaker may not trust the audience well enough to speak straight.

However, there should be a way to be "rude" in Dwarvish, not just evasive. I think this can be accomplished with formality registers, an idea which has come up before: addressing someone with the wrong pronoun would indicate distaste or disparity. That Dwarvish would have various register of formality is somewhat suggested by their social structure, which is very hierarchical. A simple formal/informal would suffice, but we could come up with a more robust system if we wanted to: so, counts would speak to dukes and kings in formal, to other counts in informal, and to barons and commoners in inferior informal.

So I could say Guth mamgoz than, "Kill - dragon - you (formal)," which would be a respectful, direct way of telling someone to kill a dragon. Than cal guth mamgoz? "You (formal) - can kill - dragon" would not be "rude," but would indicate the speaker's unwillingness to engage the audience directly. Guth mamgoz ush, "kill - dragon - you (informal)" would be disrespectful if said to a superior or possibly to an equal, but acceptable if said to an inferior (in which case than would be generous, even prodigal depending on the circumstances).

Kind of a necro but whatever. Here's a poem I was struck with recently, from Pushkin:


I haven't found a translation I really like, so I included the original. You know, in case anyone knows some Russian...

And while I'm translating poetry, here's one I wrote for the Dwarven Linguistics thread:

Some giants from a modded civ:

Ora Problemsmashes
Obri Teethimpaled
Sohig Clobberprowled the Dabbling Scholar

The numbers look pretty good. It's a bit of an intimidating system to get into, but once you get the hang of it it works pretty well. I'm still leery of having the left-hand and right-hand numerals look so similar, though.

I wrote this using what I've come up with:

A solemn poetic form concerning alcoholic beverages, originating in The Lyric of Coal. The poem is divided into two distinct septets. Use of simile is characteristic of the form. Each line has five feet with a tone pattern of uneven-even stress pattern of unstressed-stressed because that's how I read it at first and my Dwarvish doesn't have tones.

The first part is intended to make an assertion.

The second part is intended to invert the previous assertion.

Na abid on tu emen ùnadak:
nitig räduk, dastot risasiz in,
ïkor az onilun kel îk tosdat,
nekik ak olaltur datan – sirab
fabor nak; omam vúsh at izutuz
uzûd tu izot ór, nazush shosêl,
van obusmâl on séstin îk zalís.

Ot mân shaman omór, van voz bar than
kobmot; ïkar nastek than odeb voz,
öntak tu izot mân saràm soram,
van lòr räduk tu alnis abod than.
Zon îk ziksis; ser agseth, kêr nural,
van than busumid, usal ak kurång,
nabar gusemen than tor mân midor.



I've also been adding words to the impoverished lexicon: I've got about 700 verbs now, almost doubling the vanilla number, plus many pronouns, question words, prepositions, common adverbs, etc.

My recent cyclops fight illustrated:

Got into a fight with a cyclops with my elf swordsman. Almost the very first thing he does is to grab my sword, so I'm reduced to impotently beating him with fists and kicks while my companions stand off to one side just watching. Then the cyclops throws me, and I go flying at least ten tiles and crash into a tree; miraculously I survive and am only a little stunned, thanks to the iron breastplate I bought from the dwarves. Unfortunately, the cyclops now has my iron scimitar, and proceeds to dismantle my hammerdwarf companion. I sprint at the cyclops and grab the blade just before it strikes me. Then my marksdwarf gets in a good shot, fracturing the cyclops' leg, and he goes down in pain. I slit his throat and claim the victory.
Then I shamelessly loot the hammerdwarf's corpse for his steel armor.